Huangshan, China: One of the Most Spectacular Sights in the Country…So They Say

After our time in the city of Hangzhou, we left on a short train to Huangshan, one of China’s most important, and most spectacularly beautiful, sights. This is what’s known as the “Yellow Mountain”, and Chinese people will come from all over the country to climb up to the summit. It’s a strenuous climb, and there are a few route options to choose from – including via cable car, which is cheating!, we said, gung ho on doing a great day of hiking and climbing. Huangshan was the entry on our itinerary that I added myself. I had seen pictures of the mountain, and was in awe of how beautiful it was. I have to SEE the big f-ing thing, I said! I have to see this myself! Turns out, the universe had other ideas for me. I mean, I was there, I climbed up, oh how I climbed, but I didn’t actually see…anything. 

We’ll get there. First, we had to get to the town at the base of the mountain, Tangkou, where we were staying the first night. You either stay in Tunxi, by the station, or Tangkou, just under an hour away. Both are tiny, two street villages with a few questionable restaurants, a few shops, a few hostels, and some residents who look at you like, what the crap are you doing here. If you stay in Tunxi, you still have to take the bus to the base the day you climb the mountain, anyway, so there’s really no good reason not to stay in Tangkou. We stayed at a good place called YSHS Hostel, and it was fine – clean, basic, quiet – but what made it were the owners. Every review we read raved about “John and his mom” and we were like, whaaat is that about, but it’s true, John and his mom were the nicest people ever! His mom is the cook and doesn’t speak English but communicated her kindness successfully. She was very concerned when I didn’t have breakfast with Z one morning (I do room fruit for breakfast!). And John is great, and he will pick you up from and drive you to the various bus stations whenever you call him. So I definitely recommend staying there. They didn’t have a good laundry machine, so we did laundry just up the street at the other hostel, which was an interesting experience. The dryer was actually like a standing zipped up closet with an open bottom. Didn’t really work. 

We ‘explored’ the little town and got excited for the next day’s climb. It was foggy that first day but we crossed our fingers that we’d have better weather. Apparently it rains 200 days of the year on the mountain, but in the peak of summer, the storms usually move fast. So we were told. 

The next day, we set off early in the morning with John driving us to the bus station for the quick bus to the entrance of the mountain. This is where everyone needs to buy tickets to enter the mountain, which cost over 200 yuan. This is where 99% of people get on the cable car so they can get to the summit in one piece. And this is where Z and I spent 20 minutes asking everyone who worked there how in god’s name we find the actual climbing path. There were zero signs for people attempting to actually climb up. It was infuriating, and stupid. This is a big deal to climb! But that day we were the only people there at that time wanting to climb. That should have tipped us off that maybe it wasn’t a good day – the fog had worsened – but because of our schedule, it was our only shot anyway. 

Also, I didn’t yet mention, there are two climbing paths up the mountain – the eastern and western steps. The eastern steps are 7.5 kilometers of mostly easier, flatter, more doable steps and terrain. It’s still obviously a lot, but it’s better for the average person. The western steps are harder, to say the least, and our guide book firmly dissuades the reader from attempting to go up them. It was 15 kilometers of killer steep uphill mountain stairs. 15 kilometers. That is like 10 miles. Uphill. I tried a stairmaster once and lasted like a minute. We were not doing the western steps. 

John had other ideas, though. We said, John my boy! drive us to the entrance for the eastern steps! And he said – NO! You don’t want to do that, the scenery is nothing it’s a waste it’s terrible! The western steps are what’s actually worth seeing! And despite being TOLD (by the book) that it was super insane to do, we were like, Okay John! Take us to the 15 kilometers of steep mountain stairs! We will be fine! 

We were not fine – and it didn’t even have to do with how hard it was. 

So to start this hike of insanity when no one who worked there could point to a freaking path beginning, we followed buses that were going a little bit farther up the road, which was super freaking scary and dangerous – this was a mountain path road, meaning it was winding and narrow and buses careen around the bends without expecting to see people walking. It was scary and dumb but it was literally the only way to start the climb, apparently. What the hell! I can’t get over this, considering how big an attraction this climb is. Where were the starting signs, Huangshan! Get your shit together! 

Luckily, we made it to a spot that finally clearly signalled for pedestrians to ‘turn into the woods here’, and we began the real path finally. It was chilly and very foggy, but we hoped for a change in the weather soon. And we got one, just not in the direction we wanted. Oh no, the weather got much, much worse. First, it started to rain. We had our anoraks and umbrellas so we didn’t worry about that. It’s just rain! On slippery mountain steps. No biggie. And it was getting colder and colder, which, well, at least it wasn’t sweltering hot, right? But for now, we concentrated on climbing endless stairs. Hooray for exercise! This will be great! I’ll feel so great after all this leg work! 

After what seemed like hours, we assumed we’d made great progress. We came to one of the first titled points, the location of an old temple or pagoda long ago or something, and looked at the map (really really shitty map, all of them are, and they are all different) and realized we had gone like one kilometer tops. We’d gone nowhere. We met a group of Parisians who were like, surely this is halfway, right? We told them the bad news and they were like aaaare you joking?? This is TERRIBLE! It was great to be with people who were complaining more than me. I was okay so far, just a little cold and wet, but I still was optimistic that the fog and clouds would break before we got out of the forest and to a point on the mountain where views would be good. 

Over the next two hours, it didn’t just get colder and rainier. It was like the coldest and wettest we’ve ever been for that long. We were soaked to the bone, our clothes so wet we could wring out our shirts despite wearing anoraks, and so frozen that they were like sheets of ice hitting our shivering skin. Every step we took, it was like swinging into a sheet of ice. Clammy, goose-bumped skin, completely drenched hair and clothes, and SOCKS, despite good hiking boots (and hiking socks! it went through to my base layer socks! so gross!). It was completely miserable, and so were we. But we were going to stay at a nice hotel at the top of the mountain that night, as is like the thing to do, so we kept plowing ahead, despite the worsening weather. The rain got harder, but it was the wind that was killer. It was like hurricane wind, gale force winds knocking us back – which, when you are on top of mountain cliffs, is not an ideal situation. People were hanging onto the slippery ‘railings’ from the 4th century trying to make it to the next plateau for safety but the wind thwarted us at every turn. Then the wind blew my umbrella inside out – which it had been doing repeatedly, and as usual I would turn it the other way and let the wind blow it rightside in or however you say that. But this time, the wind was so ferocious that it blew my umbrella inside out and BROKE the spokes. No more umbrella usage for me! So I used my soaking wet buff to keep my anorak hood in place and settled for that being as good as I could get, as rain just poured right down into my eyes and made it harder to see now. We made it to another little overhang section with another little shop (luckily there were drink and snack stands frequently), and dozens and dozens of people were camped out, waiting for the weather to lift but we all knew by now that it would only get worse. And it did. It really did, but we continued because we had to be almost there, right? 

It started to hail, guys. We were probably 10 kilometers up the mountain by now – UP A MOUNTAIN, on a swirling path by the edge of it – and it was HAILING. And gale force winds were whipping our entire bodies hither and thither and, according to the people coming down the mountain, we still were at least an hour from the end of the Western Steps. Another hour, after it had been probably three and a half by now of consistent trudging directly UP. We were a mess. The French guys were even worse. We all huddled together under a small roof and scarfed down a few necessary blood-sugar-raising snacks. I have never been a huge fan of Pringles, but the entire can we demolished was the greatest thing I’d ever eaten in my life. 

The worst part, though, wasn’t how miserable the weather was making us. It was how miserable the weather was making the view. Or, rather, there was no view anymore. We had come to Huangshan, I NEEDED to see Huangshan, because the view from and of the mountain is considered one of the most magical sights in all of China, a must-see, just beyond comprehension how gorgeous it is. And we could barely see three feet in front of us, let alone anything in the thousands of feet below us. It was like we were just standing in the clouds, and there was no seeing anything outside of the clouds. It’s a real shame that we couldn’t enjoy the whole point of this experience and destination, merely because of bad luck and timing. 

​We continued. One more hour, we said. We can do this. One more hour and we can relax in our overpriced but should-be-decent hotel (all the hotels up at the mountain were overpriced for what they were because they can be, but still, hotels), we can take a warm shower and put on dry clothes. And maybe tomorrow would be better, and we could wake up for sunrise over the vista. So we trudged. One foot in front of the other. We were literally willing our feet to take each step. 

At about the 4.5 hour mark, we finally, finally finished the 15 kilometers uphill and reached the end of the Western Steps! We were so disappointed that we couldn’t see any of the famous views, but at least we finished the climb! We made it. Ugh, finally. So now to our hotel! Immediately at the top of the Western Steps is a different hotel, a restaurant, toilets (thanks! although there were enough along the way, thankfully), and the path to this end of the cable car. (Yes, those wise people we saw at the ticket entrance who just hopped in the cable car missed the whole dire experience of climbing in freezing hail and got off here.) We said goodbye to the French people as they happily praised the cable car they’ve been waiting to take back down and get the hell off this mountain. We asked people in the hotel and the restaurant how to get to the Paiyunlou (spelling wrong I’m sure) Hotel and they showed us a vague route on our maps that continued trekking down and around various parts of the mountain… for another 4.5 hours. UM EXCUSE ME WHAT? WHAT IS THAT YOU SAID? We kept asking different people and they all said somewhere between 4 and 5 hours, so it was real. This nightmare was real. We did not have another 2 hours in us, let alone 4-5! We called the hotel to find out whether this was a) for real, and b) why there was no information anywhere saying that this hotel was located like NOT where anyone says it is (including the book! It was f-ing recommended by our book which made NO mention of it being anywhere other than at the top of this part of the climb! DAMMIT TO HELL.) But the person who answered the phone did not speak English, and after saying a few words in Chinese she hung up on us. That’s after someone finally , finally, picked up the phone, so continuing to call wasn’t really an option and apparently despite saying that they spoke English, they did not, so what good would it do. We asked one more person the route and got another 4.5 hour answer. And then, for the first time in our lives, we bailed on a hotel booking and called John and asked if we could stay again at YSHS if we came back down. He said of course, because he’s the nicest, and that he would pick us up where he dropped us that morning, so many hours that felt like days ago, so we got on the cable car, tried to thaw during the INSANE 20-minute ride (longest cable car of my entire life, jfc) during which we continued to see absolutely zilch outside, and reassured each other that we had made the right decision. It was a sucky choice to have to make, but we could not have gone through another entire round of what we had already gone through in the wind and rain, just for the chance of better weather in the morning, when we could save four hours of hiking and shower and relax at YSHS and enjoy Tangkou a little more. I think we made the right decision. 

At the base, we got on the short bus back to the bus station, and John picked us up a minute later and drove us back to safety. And warmth. Thawing out in that shower was the best ever. We unpacked our day packs that we had on the mountain with us (John had been storing our big bags till our intended return the next day, so that was nice and lucky) and saw that every single last item was soaked through. I had to throw out a whole notebook that I had buried in the bottom, along with a box’s worth of tissues, both of which had turned to Gwynnie’s website mush. Our clothes for the next day were so wet we could wring them, and our passports were soaked! We had to dry them out and then place them under furniture to re-form and flatten. Thank god they weren’t actually ruined, just wet and misshapen. But the worst, the saddest for me, was my last pack of my favorite gum all the way from the USA, now a disintegrating box of wet gunk. (I kept it for a week after this, hoping it would dry out and get back to an edible consistency. It did not.) 

After we took boiling hot showers (we thought about going back to the hostel up the street and asking to stand in that standing-closet clothes dryer but that would have required going back outside), we went into the very nice common lobby area and chatted with a French father and son while I think John’s son played video games. John brought us all tea and crackers on the house, which was really sweet of him. The French guys lived in Paris, so we talked about how much we love (and miss…oh so miss) Paris, and all about their travels (Indonesia! Fun!) and ours, and it came out that we had our honeymoon (three years ago!) in Morocco, and the father got super excited and exclaimed “I am Moroccan!” We went through the details of our Moroccan trekking trip, as much as we could remember of the little Berber villages in the mountains that we stayed in, and of all the places in the world, it turned out that he was from Imlil, one of those tiny villages we had trekked to and lodged in, in the Atlas Mountains! How amazing is that! That these people we were having tea with in like the smallest little village in China happened to be from the smallest little place in Morocco that we went to. Such a small world! 

Soon, we needed food. Those magical Pringles were indeed wonderful but not enough to refuel after this day, so we set off to find some weird looking restaurants with pictures of food we could point to. Luckily, such places were plentiful, both in terms of the pointing and the weird, so we were in luck. I pointed to several vegetables and got them, and we liked it, and we loved it. 

After proper sustenance, we went off to find my favorite things that I had discovered in these little streets the previous day – my two favorite things in China, bubble tea and steamed buns. Yesirree, this tiny little town had BOTH, and great versions of them too! Can you even! The off-brand bubble tea place was called Tea & Brown, and it was so cheap and pretty decent. I mean as long as I can successfully communicate that I want the bubbles in mine, we’re good, I don’t care if you just give me a cup of water as long as there’s bubbles. One time the lady didn’t give me bubbles (often they don’t come in the fruit teas, and I guess I didn’t say the words for ‘please give me bubles’ right) and she tried to get away with it! Hell no! I (very politely and sweetly) made her open the plasticked top part and pour bubbles on top. 

Even better was the random lady cooking up tons (tonnes!) of steamed buns near a garage on what we considered the main street. I don’t even know if they were really for sale to the general public, but that first day I asked whether they were ‘su shi’ – vegetarian – and she pointed to the veggie ones, I said yayyy gimme, she said 1.5 yuan each (like 22 cents), and then every day after I bought like 4 at a time for less than $1 altogether! I can’t even eat four in a day but I couldn’t buy fewer; they were so cheap and big and great! It was SUCH a find! Not even in Shanghai did I find amazing vegetarian steamed buns like this! And so cheap! Because they were 1.5 yuan, I referred to them as the “one dollar five buns” (and one time, just to finish the thought, we bought SIX!). My family will understand this, and okay I’ll explain – it’s just referring to a video of my cousin when she first looooose a tooth and said the tooth fairy gave her ‘1 dollar 5’ and somehow it is THE FUNNIEST THING EVER. Anyway, the 1 dollar 5 steamed buns were so good, and so convenient, and so easy to get, I wish every town in China had a lady like this. What a great lady. 

​We also had fun exploring the small shops in town for goodies we might want…or not. 

So, we made the best of our extra time in Tangkou, but it really is such a disappointment to have missed out on the full experience of Huangshan. It’s supposed to be so magical and, for many, life-changing to see the majestic sweep of the misty mountains as you climb up and up and up, so to be met instead with pure dense cloud cover was such a damn shame. The only slight silver lining, if you can call it that, is that the next day was gross and foggy too, so if we (somehow) had made it to our hotel and tried for the views the next morning, we still would not have seen anything good. So that’s good, I guess! It means we made the right decision coming down the mountain; we just unwittingly picked the wrong week to visit Huangshan (and the wrong hotel regardless! Who builds a hotel almost 9 hours of trekking away and doesn’t say anything about the second half of it?! and I’m still so mad at the book for including all this info about it and not saying p.s. it’s not located where it says on our map! grrr). It’s too sad to share pictures of what it actually looks like here (and, well, obviously I didn’t take any myself), so take a quick second to google ‘Huangshan yellow mountain’ and take a look, and then you’ll see why we added this stop to our agenda, and why we’re pretty mad at our crappy luck. And then comment below OH DAMN IT’S BEAUTIFUL SO SORRY FOR YOU. I knowwww.